A few years ago, a selection of her
work-in-progress was published in chapbook form by Trisia Eddy as Eliza Roxcy Snow (Edmonton AB: Red
Nettle Press, 2009), a poem that survives revision
to appear at the very end of the collection. The poem exists a series of
unmarked photographs, a series of flashes and flickers in an odd kind of
collage. But one single voice in what would become an array of voices, the back
of the chapbook explained:

This is a work of
fiction, inspired by the real Eliza Roxcy Snow, polygamous wife of Joseph
Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saints (Mormon) Church. It is by no means
meant to be read as a biography of the woman. For factual information on her, I
suggest reading In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith
by Todd Compton.

The sharpest poems in the collection are the ones composed less narrative and far
more pointed in their approach, including “Patty Bartlett Sessions,” “Delcena
Diadamia Johnson Sherman” and “Flora Ann Woodworth.” Exploration of voice is something a couple of other Canadian poets have
been working on over the past few years as well, including Stephen Brockwell
and K.I. (Karen) Press, who also present commentary and social exploration in
poetry through voices that are often silent. In Dachsel’s Glossolalia, the exploration of multiple voices is echoed through
the composition of individual pieces as well, as each voice utilizes a
different compositional style, from the lyric of “Ruth Daggett Vose Sayers,” to
the point form of “Almera Woodward Johnson” to the erasure of “Lucy Walker,”
that includes:

When at length we were forced to believe she would not speak to us again
we were in the depths of despair. Ten motherless children! & such a young
mother! The youngest not yet two years old. The Prophet came to the rescue. He said,
if youremainhere Brother Walker, you will soonfollowyour wife. You must have achangeof scene, a change ofclimate. You have just such a family
as I could love. My house shall be their home. For the present, I would advise
you to sell your effects, place the little ones with kind friends, & the
four eldest shall come to my house & bereceived & treated as my own children, & if I find
the little ones are not content, or not treated right, I will bring them home
& keep themthought of being broken up as a family, & being
separated from the little ones. However my father sought tocomfort us by saying two years would
soon pass by when with renewed health he hoped toreturn& make us a home where we might be together
again. The tears rained down our faces all the while we were with themthe people often said they wished we wouldcalmourselves in their presence or
not come to see them as it made them discontented.

Writing through
sisterhood, motherhood and sexuality, the work can’t help but become a portrait
(whether fictional or otherwise) of Joseph Smith himself. And what kind of portrait has Dachsel painted? The portrait appears largely obsessive, abusive and
insular, a religious zealotry that can do little but damage the women around him.
What is interesting is in how Dachsel’s poems focus on the individuals, working
to give each of them voice, but delves little into the situation they shared,
that of the plural marriage itself. Instead, the point of the collection is to
hear from the women as individuals, through their own stories of childbirth,
heartbreaks, jealousies and other experiences. As Dachsel writes to open the
piece, “Rhoda Richards”: